BII Mobile Insights: Guess What Discounting Your iPhone App Does?

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Discounting iPhone Apps Increases Revenue By 159 Percent (Mashable)
Dropping prices on iPhone and iPad apps drastically improves revenue and download volumes, according to one study. Developers can gain a revenue increase of 159 percent in a week with price changes on iPhone apps, mobile app analytics firm Distimo reports. Price cuts have a greater effect on iPhone software, with average downloads growing by 1,665 percent in a five-day span. For iPads, downloads increased by 871 percent. Developers can see an impact in a short period of time. Distimo's study shows that in just three days, an increase is already visible. And the positive effect is lasting: the longer the sale lasts, the larger the revenue growth. Read >>

Apple Beats Nokia In Global Web Traffic On Mobiles (Fast Company)
Company StatCounter regularly investigates the differing streams of Web traffic swirling though the world's websites in the interests of knowing where the globe's Netizens are and what devices they're using. And January 2013's data contains an interesting surprise: For the first time Apple has superseded Nokia as the number one vendor in terms of global mobile Internet access. The data cover devices like smartphones and other units like the iPod touch, but not tablets (but if it did, Apple's dominance of this market would mean an even greater share of Web traffic). Apple had a 25.86 percent share of Web traffic, over Nokia's 22.15 percent and Samsung's 22.69 percent. Read >>

Google Delivering 5x Faster App Revenue Growth Than Apple (BGR)
The latest App Annie statistics once again highlight the biggest app market trend of the past year: Google has started showing spectacular mobile app revenue growth. According to App Annie, Google Play app revenue soared by about 100 percent, while iOS app revenue grew about 20 percent between the third and fourth quarters last year. Doubling sales over a three-month period is an impressive performance.

Total app revenue from the iOS camp is still nearly four times the amount of revenue that Google Play generates; but if the current growth trends persist, that gap is going to narrow very soon. Read >>

Ways To Raise Your Mobile Content Game (Hongkiat)
Here are 13 tips for optimizing your content for mobile site visitors:

1. Use placeholder text on common form inputs
2. Less is more
3. Place labels above form inputs
4. Make sure that text is always text
5. Keep headings shorter than short
6. Declare your font size in pixels for perfect control
7. Treat your content like it’s a king
8. Keep copy short
9. Save time with font-based icons
10. Images need love too
11. Go easy on the images
12. Use some asset management magic
13. Don’t make passwords more tedious than they have to be

Are you optimized for mobile? Read >>

What Do Mobile Information Workers Want? (Fortune)
The following graphic comes from a survey of nearly 10,000 so-called mobile information workers in 17 countries conducted last quarter by Forrester Research for its usual target audience: corporate chief information officers:

As for the findings in the chart, several points stand out:

• Currently 37 percent of all BYOD smartphones run on the Android platform
• More mobile information workers, 208 million in all, want Apple iPhones
• Currently 12 percent of mobile enterprise workers use iPads
• But more, 200 million hope that their next tablet will run Microsoft Windows

"Microsoft's tablet future looks bright," Forrester concludes. This despite the fact that sales of Microsoft's current offerings — the Surface and Surface Pro — have so far failed to move the needle. Read >>

Did BlackBerry 10 Arrive Too Late? (Forbes)
In a poll on Computer World, the publication asked, “The company formerly known as Research in Motion will try to score in the smartphone game with the launch of a new OS, two new handsets and a new company name. Can they do it?”

• Yes, BB10 and new phones will woo back buyers (275 votes) – 25.39 percent
• Maybe, but it’ll depend on the BB10 app ecosphere (266 votes) – 24.56 percent
• Not unless iOS or Android slip up (128 votes) – 11.82 percent
• No, BlackBerry waited too long to catch up (352 votes) – 32.5 percent
• What’s a BlackBerry? (62 votes) – 5.72 percent

While the survey is relatively small (only 1,083 people have currently voted), it is yet another sign that BlackBerry’s challenges are far from over. Read >>

Half Of All Mobile Apps Will Be HTML5 / Native Hybrids By 2016 (Gartner via iDownloadBlog)
A convergence of mobile trends is setting the stage for a day when more than half of applications will support both HTML5 and native iOS/Android environments. That’s the word from research giant Gartner, who predicts companies must support multiple platforms as well as native features. Additionally, the researcher forecasts brand-name smartphone makers could be pushed out of the low-cost market as countries such as China and India produce home-grown alternatives priced as low as $50. By 2016, more than 50 percent of mobile apps will be hybrids, Gartner forecasts. While IT departments have traditionally viewed mobility as a separate topic from supporting desktops, that tactic must change in light of the growing use of mobile devices in the workplace. Read >>